Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand, called Mahatma (1869–1948), Indian nationalist leader, an advocate of nonviolent mass political action who opposed racial discrimination in South Africa (1893–1914) and British colonial rule in India. He called his approach Satyagraha (Sanskrit satya, ‘truth’, and agraha, ‘force’), considering it a science whose end is truth (which he identified with God) and method nonviolence (ahimsa). He emphasized constructive resolution, rather than elimination, of conflict, the interrelatedness of means and ends (precluding evil means to good ends), and the importance of enduring suffering oneself rather than inflicting it upon adversaries.
Gandhi believed limited knowledge of truth deprives us of a warrant to use violence. He took nonviolence to be more than mere abstention from violence and to call for courage, discipline, and love of an opponent. Ordinary persons can practice it without full understanding of Satyagraha, which he himself disclaimed. He came to distinguish Satyagraha from passive resistance, a weapon of the weak that can turn to violence when faced with failure. Satyagraha requires strength and consistency and cannot be used in an unjust cause. Not an absolutist, Gandhi said that though nonviolence is always preferable, when forced to choose between violence and cowardice one might better choose violence. He was a man of practice more than a theoretician and claimed the superiority of Satyagraha to violence could be proven only be demonstration, not argument. He saw his work as an experiment with truth. He was influenced particularly by the Bhagavad Gita from Hindu thought, the Sermon on the Mount from Christianity, and the writings of Tolstoy, Ruskin, Emerson, and Thoreau.
See also BHAGAVAD GITA, NONVIOLENCE , PACIFIS. R.L.H.